The Matches That Will Decide Open Bracket Pool Play Qualifiers at CWL Anaheim
The first day of CWL Anaheim has concluded, and the open bracket is nearly complete.
CWL Anaheim featured a massive open bracket of 127 teams, each fighting for the chance to advance to the championship stages of the competition.
A total of eight teams will survive the open bracket, but the four of those that do so through the winner bracket will have the distinct advantage of qualifying for pool play, where they will have the chance to propel themselves further through the championship bracket.
At the end of the first day, eight teams remain in the open winner bracket. The four qualifying matches will take place on Saturday morning, and unlike the rest of the open bracket they’ll be best-of-five series, rather than best-of-three.
The following matches will determine which teams qualify for pool play:
- Lightning Pandas vs Conquest Esports
- Impact Gaming vs Elevate
- Enigma6 vs BRASH
- Heretics vs Ghost Gaming
The open bracket was largely void of major upsets, with only two of the top-eight seeds failing to reach the qualifying match. Twenty-fourth seed Conquest Esports is the most notable outlier, taking out both 8
and 9-seed teams to make it this far.
Meanwhile, 4-seed Giants were sent to the lower bracket early by 29-seed Cryptik Gaming, who were subsequently defeated by 13-seed Elevate for a chance to face Impact for qualification.
The winner of these series will advance to pool play, while the losers will drop down into the open lower bracket, where they will have the chance to qualify for the championship lower bracket.